First, you should be able to skip cinematics and cut-scenes with a button press instead of having to bring up the sluggish menu system.

Secondly, there is no restart from last checkpoint option. This was a huge annoyance to me in Brotherhood, when you would play a lengthy mission only to fail 100% synch at the very end. Then you would be forced to kill yourself to restart from the last checkpoint, but would keep the 100% failure, even if you reached the checkpoint while you had satisfied it. I really hope this is patched in, because it was such a huge issue for me in the previous game, and I thought it would be addressed in Brotherhood.

I'm still undecided about the tower defense system. I haven't played enough to see how often you will need to defend Assassin dens, but I found in GTA: San Andreas that it happened too often, and I spent a lot of time running back and forth to defend territory instead of advancing the story.

I just started the game tonight (I'm in sequence 3) and I have to say that ACR goes against almost everything that AC stands for. The gameplay is really complicated compared to the previous games, I mean seriously, for me AC is synonymous with intuitive controls and smooth gameplay but ACR is far from that, there is nothing intuitive about the controls !! It's really complicated, I'm not talking about the fights or the free-running, I can't really explain it but in some missions it doesn't feel the same as usual. It's the new weapons system that bugs me the most. And seriously, eagle vision is the L3 button now ? Ubisoft what the hell ?? Maybe I'll just get used to it, but I sure won't get used to the fact that you can't activate eagle sense while you're walking. I could do it in all the other AC game, but now all of a sudden you decide that I should make a full stop before I press L3. One could think that it's a physical limitation from the controller, but no, you CAN deactivate eagle **** while you're walking SO WHY CAN'T WE ACTIVATE IT TOO WHILE WE'RE WALKING ? ****.
And don't even get me started on that den defense thing. It was long, boring and I wish I won't have to do it again, is this AC or ****ing Starcraft ?? I ****ing hate tower defense games. AC should have stayed the way it was. Not to mention that the dialogue of the NPCs is THE SAME as AC2/ACB, only with a different accent. Seems like Ubisoft is starting to get lazy.

I have mixed feelings about the game, but I am loving the story and several of the new gadgets.

I am currently stuck on the first Thief Assignment. I can higher Thieves, and send them after guards outside of the mission, but once I'm on the missions it won't let me do it at all. The mission requires it to continue, so I guess I'm stuck, because I don't want to restart the entire game.

I'm up to sequence 6, so i think it's warming up now but these are my complaints:

1) There are some REALLY REALLY POINTLESS missions that are used just to fill in time. Like [no spoiler] when Ezio finds out that one his friends had her painting stolen, and you go off and get it back. What's the point of that? It doesn't add anything to the plot, if you want to develop charachters and their relationships, make them go for a walk or something

2) 6 Sequences and still havent played as Desmond or any of the outer-animus characters

3) WORST OF ALL!!! No scary/creepy stuff! What made the first game was Subject 16's blood on the wall, what made the other two were those puzzles and having to solve them to 1) Unlock 'The Truth' and 2) Access Subject 16's recordings. Undoubtedly the greatest part of the series has been the protagonist's interaction with Minerva and Juno. ACR has none, there better be some awesome interaction with Those Who Came Before or something like that, or else this game was pointless.

I know it's early so i don't really have the right to complain, but everything so far (pretty sure im half way) hasn't added anything. The game is titles REVELATIONS, there better be some. I read in a revie that the game didn't really reveal anything much, but i guess i'll just have to wait and see.